St. Michael’s College will remain all-remote for the rest of its semester after a Covid-19 outbreak there continued to grow in recent days, the school announced Monday.
“We focused on the practical considerations of managing the final weeks of the semester on campus, given the additional positive cases and their close contacts identified this past weekend,” said college President Lorraine Sterritt in the announcement.
The outbreak began with eight cases detected through surveillance testing the week before Oct. 22, and grew to 26 cases by Oct. 25. The testing of more than 1,000 students last week yielded another 22 cases, according to the school’s Covid-19 dashboard, bringing its case total to 66 for the semester.
Administrators had planned for students to return to in-person classes on Monday, but the rising cases made that infeasible, Sterrit said. Classes will be held remotely until the school’s semester ends on Nov. 25, and all in-person activities have been cancelled.
Sterritt also said that students who wish to leave campus early may do so, provided they receive a Covid-19 test beforehand and leave within 48 hours of receiving a negative result. The school plans to continue testing in the coming days, she said.
Officials last week confirmed that new cases at St. Michael’s were connected to a mid-October outbreak that started among central Vermont hockey players. They had been monitoring those outbreaks, along with another at a Cambridge wedding, as Vermont’s case growth rose in late October.
Other colleges have announced few new cases of the virus in recent weeks, according to a presentation Tuesday by Department of Financial Regulation Commissioner Mike Pieciak. UVM has the second-highest case total among Vermont colleges with 27 cases.
Vermont colleges had conducted 158,000 Covid-19 tests as of Nov. 3, with 118 cases detected total.
